the measures of religion, and the Spirit: though they can talk still or transact the affairs of the world, yet if they be not fitted for the things of the spirit, they are too full of flesh or wine, and cannot or care not to attend to the things of God. But reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders; and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled, and our soul is lifted from its wheels, in the same degree the sin prevails. "Dum sumus in quadam delinquendi libidine, nebulis quibusdam insipientiæ mens obducitur," saith St. Ambrose; when the flesh-pots reek, and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smells, that cloud hides the face, and puts out the eye of reason; and then tell them, Mors in olla,' that Death is in the pot,' and folly is in the chalice; that those smells are fumes of brimstone, and vapours of Egypt; that they will make their heart easy, and their head sottish, and their colour pale, and their hands trembling, and their feet tormented. Mullorum, leporumque et suminis exitus hic est, For that is the end of delicacies, δυσωδία λευκὸς, ἰδεῖν, ἐντρυ pegòs, aidgías nai Tóvwv äreigos, as Dio Chrysostom, "paleness, and effeminacy, and laziness, and folly;" yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality, men are so stripped of the use of reason, that they are not only useless in wise counsels and assistances, but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly; when once their reason fails, we must know, that their temperance and their religion went before. 3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers, and we can never have leave to do any violence to it; yet the measures of nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity. For besides hunger and thirst, there are some labours of the body, and others of the mind, and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body; and as the labouring man may be supplied with bigger quantities, so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and sprightful nutriment: for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will • Mart. 12. 48. 9. not help to carry burdens upon the neck, and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen; so neither will the pulse and the leeks, Lavinian sausages, and the Cisalpine suckets or gobbets of condited bull's-flesh, minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man; but his notion will be flat as the noise of the Arcadian porter, and thick as the first juice of his country lard, unless he makes his body a fit servant to the soul, and both fitted for the employment. But in these cases necessity, and prudence, and experience, are to make the measures and the rule; and so long as the just end is fairly designed, and aptly ministered to, there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision: and he that would stint a swain by the commons of a student, and give Philotas the Candian the leavings of Plato, does but ill serve the ends of temperance, but worse of prudence and necessity. 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink, as any other disease; and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other. For, great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger; and if it be a sin in its nature, it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality; as naturally tending to murmur and despair, weariness of religion, and hatred of God, timorousness and jealousies, fantastic images of things, and superstition; and therefore, as it is necessary to restrain the fevers of anger, so also to warm the freezings and dulness of melancholy by prudent and temperate, but proper and apportioned diets; and if some meats and drinks make men lustful, or sleepy, or dull, or lazy, or sprightly, or merry; so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion, and the passion minister to virtue, so far by this means they may be provided for. "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to thosethat be of heavy hearts ;let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more," said King Lemuel's mother. But this is not intended to bean habitual cure, but single and occasional; for he that hath a pertinacious sorrow, is beyond the cure of meat and drink, and if this becomes every day's physic, it will quickly become every day's sin. Then it must always keep within the bounds of reason, and never • Prov. xxxi. 6. seize upon any portions of affection: the Germans use to mingle music with their bowls, and drink by the measures of the six notes of music; Ut relevet miserum fatum, solitosque labores : But they sing so long, that they forget not their sorrow only, but their virtue also, and their religion: and there are some men that fall into drunkenness, because they would forget a lighter calamity, running into the fire to cure a calenture, and beating their brains out to be quit of the aching of their heads. A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenness: for when he arrives thither, he hath but changed his heaviness, and taken a crime to boot. 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him, no pungent sorrow, or natural or artificial necessity, it is lawful in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it. For whatsoever is natural and necessary, is therefore not criminal, because it is of God's procuring; and since we eat for need, and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain, and that in nature is the greatest pleasure, it is impossible that in its own nature it should be a sin. But in this case of conscience, these cautions are to be observed: 1. So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art, it is materially innocent, "Si tuo veniat jure, luxuria est :”* but it is safe while it enters upon nature's stock; for it is impossible that the proper effect of health, and temperance, and prudent abstinence, should be vicious; and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure, in eating and drinking. "Malum panem expecta, bonus fiet; etiam illum tenerum tibi et siligineum fames reddet :" If you abstain and be hungry, you shall turn the meanest provision into delicate, and desirable.' 2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health, and be within the former bounds. For since pleasure in eating and drinking is its natural appendage, and like a shadow follows the substance, as the meat is to be accounted, so is the pleasure: and if these be observed, there is no difference whether nature or art be the cook. For some constitutions, and some men's customs, and some men's educations, and necessities, and weaknesses, are such, that * Seneca. their appetite is to be invited, and their digestion helped, but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need. 3. It is lawful, when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter, even merely for their pleasures; that is, because they are pleasant, besides that they are useful; this is as lawful as to smell of a rose, or to lie in feathers, or change the posture of our body in bed for ease, or to hear music, or to walk in gardens rather than the highways; and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things, which he made to that purpose, that we may also be delighted in him that gives them. For so as the more pleasant may better serve for health, and directly to refreshment, so collaterally to religion: always provided, that it be in its degree moderate, and we temperate in our desires, without transportation and violence, without unhandsome usages of ourselves, or taking from God and from religion any minutes and portions of our affections. When Eicadastes, the epicure, saw a goodly dish of hot meat served up, he sung the verse of Homer, Τοῦ δ ̓ ἐγὼ ἄντιος εἶμι, καὶ ἐν πυρὶ χεῖρας ἔοικε, and swallowed some of it greedily, till by its hands of fire it curled his stomach, like parchment in the flame, and he was carried from his banquet to his grave. Non potuit fato nobiliore mori It was fit he should die such a death, but that death bids us beware of that folly. 4. Let the pleasure as it came with meat, so also pass away with it. Philoxenus was a beast; naró TOTE TηV YEgáYou auxéva xiv, he wished his throat as long as a crane's,' that he might be long in swallowing his pleasant morsels; "Mæret quod magna pars felicitatis exclusa esset corporis angustiis;" he mourned because the pleasure of eating was not spread over all his body,' that he might have been an epicure in his hands: and indeed, if we consider it rightly, great eating and drinking is not the greatest pleasure of the taste, but of the touch; and Philoxenus might feel the unctuous juice slide softly down his throat, but he could not taste it in the middle of the long neck: and we see that they who mean to feast exactly, or delight the palate, do 'libare,' or *Mart. xi. 70. 'pitissare,' take up little proportions and spread them upon the tongue or palate; but full morsels and great draughts are easy and soft to the touch; but so is the feeling of silk, or handling of a melon, or a mole's skin, and as delicious too as eating when it goes beyond the appetites of nature, and the proper pleasures of taste, which cannot be perceived but by a temperate man. And therefore let not the pleasure be intended beyond the taste; that is, beyond those little natural measures in which God intended that pleasure should accompany your tables. Do not run to it beforehand, nor chew the cud when the meal is done; delight not in fancies, and expectations, and remembrances of a pleasant meal; but let it descend in latrinam,' together with the meals whose attendant pleasure is. 5. Let pleasure be the less principal, and used as a servant it may be modest and prudent to strew the dish with sugar, or to dip thy bread in vinegar; but to make thy meal of sauces, and to make the accessory become the principal, and pleasure to rule the table, and all the regions of thy soul, is to make a man less and lower than an oglio, of a cheaper value than a turbot; a servant and a worshipper of sauces, and cooks, and pleasure, and folly. 6. Let pleasure, as it is used in the regions and limits of nature and prudence, so also be changed into religion and thankfulness. "Turtures cum bibunt, non resupinant colla." say naturalists; "Turtles when they drink, lift not up their bills;" and if we swallow our pleasures without returning the honour and the acknowledgment to God that gave them, we may "large bibere, jumentorum modo," " drink draughts as large as an ox," but we shall die like an ox, and change our meats and drinks into eternal rottenness. In all religions it hath been permitted to enlarge our tables in the days of sacrifices and religious festivity. Qui Veientanum festis potare diebus 66 Campana solitus trulla, vappamque profestis. For then the body may rejoice in fellowship with the soul, and then a pleasant meal is religious, if it be not inordinate. But if our festival-days, like the Gentile sacrifices, end in drunkenness,+ and our joys in religion pass into sensuality and beastly crimes, we change the holy-day into a day of † Μεθύειν μετὰ τὸ θύων. Hor. Serm. ii. 3. 143. |